Looking For Something
by JossyRose
Summary: Ren reflects on what he is searching for and the other companions while resting in the Realm of Eaternal Twilight in between jobs, particularly after the episode Silent Gaze (although there isn't really anything to indicate this in the story, as long as you know what Ren is, there are no spoilers.)


"You're searching for something, right?"

"There is. Will I find it if I go with you people?"

"Whether you find it or not will depend solely on you."

"I've grown bored with this place anyway."

Ren opened his visible, olive toned eye. He sat in the soft grass of the Realm of Eternal Twilight, staring up at the always golden sky. 'Relaxing' is how most would describe it. 'Peaceful'. But most people also aren't three hundred year old tsukumogami katana swords who have spent two centuries living in the very limited space of the disconnected realm. Aside from that, the man was too deep in his own thoughts, wonders, and memories to feel calm or content.

"What are you looking for?" Hone Onna had asked him this not too long after joining their little 'family'. The question was prompted because of her first inquiring, "Were you ever human?" after he had off-handedly mentioned that he never understood the species.

"No," he had stated quietly, almost suspiciously.

"What were you?"

"Tsukumogami."

"Artifact spirit?"

Ren had nodded, trying to leave it at that, but at the look she had given him, he knew he couldn't. He hadn't gone into most of the details, being as vague as possible without causing her to press, but he hadn't been capable of passing over the small conversation he had been engaged in with Ai when he was still being an abandoned sword stuck in cracked stone, surrounded with the bloodied corpses of human samurais, his master laying dead on the field, not that Ren had held any particular attachment to the man. He still remembered the sensation, his form changing when Ai grabbed his handle and allowed energy to flow through until the leather wrapped helve morphed into a toned, human arm connected to the male spirit with green eyes and chin length black hair that covered his left orb.

"What is it then?"

"Huh?" Ren's head snapped up, a dumb-founded expression upon his attractive features as if he had forgotten what they had been chatting about, which, after knowing the man better, Hone Onna would later reflect that he probably had.

"What are you looking for?"

Silence for about half a minute, "I don't know."

That was so long ago though. How many years; almost two hundred? Probably closer to one hundred thirty, and that was an over-estimation.

"Ichimoku."

Ren looked up at the woman he was thinking about. She had changed quite a bit since their first meeting when the lady had been basically hysterical, mourning for the loss of her tragic life (which Ren still didn't understand; didn't most women in her situation usually commit suicide anyway? He didn't even understand deceased humans!) and having little to no control over her skeletal appearance.

It had been an interesting first impression o say the very had returned to the world where twilight never ceased and her cottage stood with a beautiful woman in a too-revealing kimono, introducing the older female as "Hone Onna, formerly Tsuyu."

Already, the sword had felt it to be odd that his young miss not elaborate at all, but he spoke not a word of it. After all, it was no business of his.

I am Ichimoku Ren."

If the new addition was going to be vague, so was he, he had decided. She had stepped forward slightly, not realizing that half of her face had become bone. With a short cry of surprise, the sword-turned-human jumped back.

"Hone Onna, 'bone woman'. I see where you get the name; it suits you," he chuckled a bit sheepishly with a blush spreading across his face.

"Ichimoku."

The man looked up; he had spaced out again. Damn. He was doing that a lot lately. Why was that? He supposed it was a reflection, but what for? He had never been too outwardly concerned with what it was he was in search of. Of course he thought of it a lot, but it never seemed to truly affect him. Clearly, it was something more than justice and its preservation. And more than a family or friends, as well, since he already sort of had that with his fictive kin of the young miss and her companions. In the distance he heard Kikuri screeching, but with delight or fury he couldn't tell. Goodness, that child never shut up!

"Maybe I'm searching for peace away from that girl?" he muttered.

"Huh?"

Hm. He had forgotten that Hone Onna was still standing there, a puzzled expression set on her attractive features. Ren saw why mortal men were so taken with the bone woman, just as he recognized why mortal women were so taken with his own beauty, but still, their relationship was no more than platonic to him and he knew that she felt the same. He had never fallen in love, never heard the music of poetry dancing through his veins at the sight of any woman, or man for that matter, never saw a human as delicate as a rose or as angelic as God's faithful warriors.

Ren stood, still staring at the twilight. Maybe that was what he was searching for. Maybe, after seeing so many couples torn apart by his own blade, he wished to know the eternal fire they held in their hearts. Love.


End file.
